1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a keyword creation method and its apparatus, and is appropriately applied, for example, to a program retrieval system for retrieving the programs necessary for a viewer from many TV programs distributed via a broadcasting satellite.
2. Description of the Related Art
With a satellite broadcast system wherein TV programs are distributed via a broadcasting satellite to viewer, TV signals are digitalized and a vast number of programs are simultaneously distributed. In such a system, the number of programs selected by a viewer increases markedly.
Besides, with a system for providing various items of information from the host side to computer terminals via a telephone line or private line, a user on the terminal side selects the necessary item of information from a vast amount of information and requests it to the host side.
In an attempt to select such TV programs, items of information using a computer or the like, a viewer or user must retrieve a desired program or information item from a vast number of programs or a vast amount of information. In this case, a viewer or user selects a word or the like related to the genre of the program to be selected or the information item to be selected as the keyword and retrieves a desired program or information item by referring to it.
In a way of a viewer or user to directly input a keyword to a retrieval system, however, a viewer or user need to always learn and renew a knowledge concerning an up-to-date keyword or genre classification method of information repeatedly according as programs or information items are renewed and has difficulty in readily selecting a desired keyword.
Besides, there is a method comprising storing keywords such as genres or words selected by a viewer or user in the past as a selection history and using them as keywords at the time of future retrieval. At a first time of using a retrieval system according to this method, no history information is present and a viewer or user is compelled to directly select and input a keyword to the system and has such difficulty in readily selecting a keyword as the above-mentioned case.
In such a manner, there was a problem that the retrieval operation of a viewer or a user is complicated and it is difficult to readily select a required program or information item.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for creating a keyword capable of retrieving the information item corresponding to the liking of a viewer or user.
The foregoing object and other objects of the invention have been achieved by inputting the answers of question items made to a user, calculating the habitual situation characteristics of the user and the degree of a typical liking tendency of the user on the basis of the answers, creating user""s keyword(s) for typical situation(s) in one or more previously prepared typical individual situation(s) on the basis of the degree of user""s typical liking tendency and correcting the keyword(s) on the basis of user""s habitual situation characteristics, thereby creating the keyword(s) corresponding to user""s actual situation.
According to the present invention, on the user""s input of daily items such as his existing life stage and age/sex, his liking tendency and living scene/selected site environmental phase, the keyword creation block section creates the habitual situation conversion data related to user""s habitual situation and the liking attribute ascribability data related to user""s liking attribute, thereby automatically creating a group of retrieval keywords reflecting the liking tendency of a user under a specific situation in a specific field.
The nature, principle and utility of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying in which like parts are designated by like reference numerals or characters.